A successful work of art is not one which resolves contradictions in a spurious harmony, but one which expresses the idea of harmony negatively by embodying the contradictions, pure and uncompromised, in its innermost structure. (Theodor W. Adorno)

Objects don't exist for me except in so far as a rapport exists between them or between them and myself. When one attains this harmony, one reaches a sort of intellectual non-existence - what I can only describe as a sense of peace, which makes everything possible and right. Life then becomes a perpetual revelation. That is true poetry. (Georges Braque)

There is music wherever there is harmony, order and proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony. (Thomas Browne)

Unfortunately, no rules can be given to guide him [the student] in [the] difficult question of harmony; he must try different combinations, and not be content until he gets something which he feels at once is beautiful. (John Collier)

The word 'art' means harmony for me. I never speak of mathematics and never bother with the Spirit. My only science is the choice of impressions that the light in the universe furnishes to my consciousness as an artisan which I try, by imposing an Order, and Art, an appropriate representative life, to organize... (Robert Delaunay)

Painting is all about contrasts and transitions and the variations of those: thick/thin, soft/hard, light/dark, red/green, blue/orange, texture/no texture, definition/vagueness, sharp transitions/soft blends, positive/negative, etc. When they are successful - that is in harmony - everything flows. And the opposite too; when they are out of sync, it is a struggle. (Jack Dickerson)

Just as counterpoint and harmony follow their own laws, and differ in rhythm and movement, both formal tensions and color tensions have a development of their own in accordance with the inherent laws from which they are separately derived. Both, however, aim toward the realization of the same image. And both deal with the depth problem. (Hans Hofmann)

Harmony with land is like harmony with a friend; you cannot cherish his right hand and chop off his left. That is to say, you cannot love game and hate predators; you cannot conserve the waters and waste the ranges; you cannot build the forest and mine the farm. The land is one organism. (Aldo Leopold)

All that is not useful in a picture is detrimental. A work of art must be harmonious in its entirety; for superfluous details would, in the mind of the beholder, encroach upon the essential elements. (Henri Matisse)

In most natural scenes there is a prevailing colour, which the landscape painter must learn to identify, and which must prevail also in a slightly exaggerated form, in his painting, for the sake of truth, harmony and unity. (Walter J. Phillips)

Harmony is the analogy of contrary and similar elements of tone, of color, and of line, conditioned by the dominant key, and under the influence of a particular light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations. (Georges Seurat)

The artist has to feel the harmony first, it can't be faked; it breathes itself out through the pores of the fingers and the pores of the paint, only when it is so strong it can't be held in any longer. (Marney Ward)

Nature contains the elements, in colour and form, of all pictures, as the keyboard contains the notes of all music. But the artist is born to pick and choose... that the result may be beautiful – as the musician gathers his notes, and forms his chords, until he brings forth from chaos glorious harmony... (James Abbott McNeill Whistler)